Most of what I express here will be directed towards North America’s path dependency on the private vehicle although some of it will also be relevant to policy incentives in East Asia. As my father always used to tell me: “You have to think in systems, you can’t expect everything to fall into place if you only change one variable, you change one variable at a time until the whole thing works together for your objective.” If the objective for electric cars is to provide clean transportation without sacrificing personal freedoms, it has failed thus far.
There are quite a few things I’d like to cover in this piece on electric cars; including tax discounts, pollution, HOV lane usage, zoning laws, minimum parking requirements, congestion, urban design, freedom of movement, and labor mobility. So let’s look at the issues one by one and try to dissect the problem.
Hong Kong, Canada, the US, the EU, and other jurisdictions have provided tax discounts to electric car owners for at least a period of time when they were first marketed. These could include discounts on first registration tax, goods and services tax, and value added tax. What irks me about this is the fact that the taxes are a source of government revenue and reflects the negative externalities of car ownership, not emissions. Emissions are taxed by fuel tax and, well, emissions tax. When a car owner pays road tax or registration tax they are paying for the costs of road repair and the congestion they cost to users of public transit. In many cases, an electric car is twice as heavy as a conventional petrol or diesel car and thus reflects increased stress to the road surface. The incentive to using electric cars should be a reduction in fuel costs by using the cheaper alternative – electricity, but they should still pay for the road that they use.
Talking about energy usage brings me to my next point of pollution and roadside emissions. If electricity is generated by coal, it is twice as polluting as energy generated by petrol. So chances are, if you live in China or Australia, your electric car still powered by fossil fuels. If we taxed emissions in these countries, electric cars should have to pay just as much, if not more for the pollution they cause. Shifting urban roadside emissions to the countryside doesn’t solve global warming, it’s just more selfish NIMBY attitude. There are also no large-scale battery recycling plants capable of absorbing all the discarded batteries from electric cars leading to a higher risk of poisonous chemicals like mercury and cadmium leaking into the environment. If reducing pollution was the goal, electric cars are definitely not the permanent solution.
When I was driving in the US and Canada, I noticed that some areas allowed electric cars to use HOV lanes regardless of the number of passengers inside. This bothered me because HOV lanes are supposed to encourage carpooling and provide faster bus services during rush hour. Allowing single-occupant electric cars to use the lane pretty much defeats the purpose of having an HOV lane in the first place. Again, electric cars like any other car on the road takes up the same amount of space, what gives them the right to be treated any differently? Like a broken record, I’ll say it again, their incentive is already reflected on lower fuel costs, everyone should be treated equally on the road.
The next part of this piece will focus on how cars in general, regardless of whether they are electric or not, automated or not, are not the ideal mode of transportation for the future. Even if we all used autonomous electric cars powered completely by renewable energy, we still have to build wide highways and huge parking lots to facilitate the movement of these vehicles. Current zoning laws in the US varies, but most jurisdictions require a minimum number of parking spaces to a ratio of residents or business patrons or employees. This takes up valuable real estate that could be turned into prime on-street retail space if buses, trams, and metros were used in lieu of cars in urban areas. I’m not even going to compare America with Europe, look at the difference between the streets of Seattle and the Streets of Minneapolis, compare the streets of New York with the streets of Indianapolis – you get the idea. The car culture must end, and public transit must become a viable option.
More cars also mean more congestion given that road infrastructure remains unchanged. Even if cars are fully autonomous and can travel at 200km/h, that’s still slower than trains and they are still vulnerable to weather. While trains in countries like Japan and Denmark are scheduled to the nearest 6-second interval you can’t say that the rubber-tired electric car in your garage will be able to deliver you to your destination at the same punctuality, even two decades into the future. Of course, it would be impractical for rail to visit every single town and we still need a first and last-mile solution, but that’s all private cars should be – getting you to and from the nearest transit option in suburban areas.
You might say: “Oh, you haven’t addressed the rural parts of North America, have you?” To which I answer: “Over 80% of the US lives in cities, fewer than 20% of the population will have a demonstrated need for a private car if zoning requirements and infrastructure investment leads to dense urban living with efficient public transit.” Personally, I really don’t understand why underground trains are such a foreign concept to Americans, it’s been done in Europe and Asia for over a century, yet whenever LA, or DC, or Seattle comes up with a new train it’s almost always over ground, prone to traffic conditions that cars suffer from as well.
Expanding public transit options also makes job opportunities more equitable to everyone. Studies have found that access to public transportation is the single largest factor in improving labor mobility and alleviating poverty by providing access to jobs. Hardworking people who are ready and willing to work shouldn’t be barred from work because the train doesn’t stop in their suburb. Even if it is expensive to build efficient all-day transport services, the gains from increased productivity, tax income, and human dignity makes it more than worthwhile. In a community that relies on the car, freedom of movement is denied to the young, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. In a time where we believe everyone should have the same rights, we need accessible and affordable public transit to provide for the right to access leisure facilities, work opportunities, healthcare, and education.
Don’t misunderstand this piece by saying that I’m advocating for zero car ownership. I love cars and people should be allowed to own a car given that they pay the full external cost of owning a car. Imagine if none of us gave up our cars, but chose to use public transit for 80% of our trips during the weekday, wouldn’t that already make a big difference? By all means drive to Mount Rushmore on the weekends or visit Niagara Falls during summer, but we need to make it so commutes to urban areas are no longer dependent on cars. I suppose one way we could realize this is by zero-rating all road taxes and making every single road an automatic toll road. This way we can all afford to own cars and be encouraged drive only when we really need to.
Car ownership isn’t a right, it is a privilege, nobody is born with the ability to drive, nobody should be forced to sit in traffic in a bus, and everybody should be able to go anywhere they want, whenever they want regardless of wealth or health.
